{pretty, happy, funny, real} – random pieces of life

The ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter were encouraging this week’s {phfr} to be about desk space, since an organized and clean desk is such a great jump start for productivity and clear thinking. Unfortunately, my desk is in a very dimly lit room and I didn’t have opportunity during the daylight hours to try to take a picture of it! So in the spirit of the link-up I cleaned and organized the horrible mess that was my desk and then enjoyed getting some HOA work done on the newly-emptied surface. It really does make a difference, having it clean!

{pretty}

We are in the height of citrus season here in the low desert, and my parents have quite a few trees, so on Monday afternoon we took some time to make orange marmalade, candied orange peels, and candied grapefruit peels. The jars in the picture above are of the orange syrup left over from boiling the peels – the flavor is quite strong and sweet and makes a good addition to different types of drinks. I think it would be good with just some sparkling water but my mom has an old-fashioned in mind 🙂 She’s not as much of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol as I am!

{happy}

Our garden has really become a play space. On Tuesday I watched my nephew and niece for a couple hours and they had a great time exploring the dirt and plants in the garden; I’m not sure who slipped this little construction crate under the cilantro, though! It looks like a little elfin summerhouse to me – I can just imagine the little people frolicking in the dappled green light under the leaves, and resting for the night in their hideaway.

{funny}

Because the weather has been so unseasonably warm, our little orange tree has begun budding already. Its branches are beginning to encroach rather significantly into the yard, but it had been trimmed ruthlessly and ignorantly before we bought the house and suffered a lot of sunburn as a result, so we’re giving it a few years to heal before we try to trim it again. So, some of the branches are at just the right height for Limerick to explore, and he’s been quite intrigued by the new flower buds. In fact, he’ll stand at the tree, oblivious to the world, picking all the flower buds off, saying “flower bud!” each time and then dropping them on the ground or into a cup. Some of the fruits (flowers?) of his labor he then put on the edge of the raised bed garden, for no reason known outside of his own small head…

{real}

If I had gotten a “before” picture of my desk, that would have been my {real} picture for the week! I had pre-Christmas decorations, old mail, HOA papers, the remnants of a Christmas craft, some chocolate and essential oils, and some items destined for Goodwill, all piled up on a table no more than 30″ square. Even the “after” picture could be {real}, though, tucked away as the desk is by my husband’s school desk, his weights and bench, the vacuum, and a couple large bookshelves… all of our random things seem to have ended up in the same place, which is also the only way to get into the backyard, so there’s always a bit of chaos going on. But it is cleaner than it was, and that makes me happy 🙂